Mechanisms and techniques provide a system that operates in a data communications device to provide automatic authentication of a client device to a server device. The mechanisms and techniques (i.e., the system) operate to detect a requirement for authentication of a request for data sent from a client device to a server device. In response, the system creates an authentication response in response to detecting the requirement for authentication. The authentication response contains authentication information required by the server device to allow the client device to access data via the server device. The system then automatically inserts the authentication response into the data communications session between the client device and the server device. The authentication response authenticates, to the server device, access to the data by the client device. The system also maintains the data communications session between the server device and the client device in the presence of authentication response information inserted into the data communications session between the client device and the server device.

Techniques for providing reliable transport of data across a network between a server on a server device and a client on a client device include a process on the client device which determines a number of packets to be sent by the server device without an acknowledgement message from the client device. The number of packets is based on considerations of network problems. A data packet sent to a server device includes a first field holding data indicating the number of packets to be sent by the server device without an acknowledgement message from the client device. Accordingly, a transport layer process on a client device to download large amounts of content from a stateless transport layer process on a server device, substantially reducing the computational resources consumed by the server device in serving thousands of clients.